powerclown

The NYT itself doesn't seem to know whether the program was secret or not. These inconsistencies play up issues of credibility on the part of the NYT imo.

Bank Spy Program: A "Secret" or Common Knowledge?
Posted by: Clay Waters
7/5/2006 10:43:44 AM

The Times backpedals a bit from its irresponsible story revealing a successful terrorist surveillance program involving international bank transactions. After playing it up as a lead story June 23, nine days later it's shrugged off as common knowledge.

Reporter Eric Lichtblau (who wrote the article) on CNN’s Reliable Sources last Sunday defending his bank spy scoop:

"I'm not claiming I know the mind of every terrorist, but I am claiming to know exactly what President Bush and his senior aides have said. And when you have senior Treasury Department officials going before Congress, publicly talking about how they are tracing and cutting off money to terrorists, weeks and weeks before our story ran. 'USA Today,' the biggest circulation in the country, the lead story on their front page four days before our story ran was the terrorists know their money is being traced, and they are moving it into -- outside of the banking system into unconventional means. It is by no means a secret."

And: "There was a significant question as to how secret the program was after five years."
– Times Public Editor Barney Calame, July 2.

vs.

"Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials." – The lead sentence to the June 23 story by Eric Lichtblau and James Risen uncovering the terrorist spy program, headlined "Bank Data Sifted In Secret By U.S. To Block Terror."

Inaccurate. The press was asked not to publish this story and they did it anyway.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article...SWIFT Deposits
Published 7/5/2006 12:09:19 AM

According to Treasury and Justice Department officials familiar with the briefings their senior leadership undertook with editors and reporters from the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, the media outlets were told that their reports on the SWIFT financial tracking system presented risks for three ongoing terrorism financing investigations. Despite this information, both papers chose to move forward with their stories.

"We didn't give them specifics, just general information about regions where the investigations were ongoing, terrorist organizations that we believed were being assisted. These were off the record meetings set up to dissuade them from reporting on SWIFT, and we thought the pressing nature of the investigations might sway them, but they didn't," says a Treasury official.

In fact, according to a Justice Department official, one of the reporters involved with the story was caught attempting to gain more details about one of the investigations through different sources. "We believe it was to include it in their story," says the official.

In the briefings, Treasury and Justice Department officials laid out the challenges law enforcement and intelligence agencies have had with the traditional and still popular hawala Muslim "banking" system, which is dependent more on interpersonal dealings than on institutions and has been prevalent in parts of the world that doesn't understand the Islamic rules. "Since 9/11 we've gotten a lot better at monitoring hawalas," says a Justice Department official. "That success has forced a lot of the money into the institutional or more traditional banking systems. And that's where SWIFT has been particularly helpful."

This is especially true in the regions of the world that cater to large Muslim communities that require banking rules in line with their faith. Increasingly in countries like Malaysia, large, international banks are attracting billions in Muslim funds, trades and transfers of which could be monitored by SWIFT.

According to the Treasury and Justice Department sources, the reporters and editors appeared to have been told that the SWIFT financial monitoring was somehow being undertaken without warrants and without legal supervision. But from the initial briefings, the Times papers were shown information that clearly outlined the search warrant procedures undertaken by the federal government to track some financial transactions.

In fact the SWIFT program released a statement once the Times' stories ran stating that it had negotiated terms of the limited monitoring:

SWIFT negotiated with the U.S. Treasury over the scope and oversight of the subpoenas. Through this process, SWIFT received significant protections and assurances as to the purpose, confidentiality, oversight and control of the limited sets of data produced under the subpoenas. Independent audit controls provide additional assurance that these protections are fully complied with.

"We thought that once the reporters and editors understood that one, these were not warrantless searches, and two, that this was a successful program that had netted real bad guys, and three, that it was a program that was helping us with current, ongoing cases, they would agree to hold off or just not do a story," says the U.S. Treasury official. "But it became clear that nothing we said was going sway them. Whomever they were talking to, whoever was leaking the stuff, had them sold on this story."

To that end, the Justice Department has quietly and unofficially begun looking into possible sources for the leak. "We don't think it's someone currently employed by the government or involved in law enforcement or the intelligence community," says another Justice source. "That stuff about 'current and former' sources just doesn't wash. No one currently working on terrorism investigations that use SWIFT data would want to leak this or see it leaked by others. We think we're looking at fairly high-ranking, former officials who want to make life difficult for us and what we do for whatever reasons."

As for the ongoing investigations that the two Times papers were told of, only time will tell if they have been damaged by the reporting. "Let's put it this way, some of these folks probably aren't using their banks anymore, so who knows," says the Treasury source. "Using banks for transfers was easier for them to move funds faster, especially if it was in a part of the world that was heavily Muslim and they thought the money wouldn't draw as much attention there. But groups like al Qaeda aren't about to put expediency before their goals of destroying us, so they will do what they have to do to protect their financing and their operatives. We know that, we just wish the New York Times and Los Angeles Times cared, too."

So you, too, seem to be acknowledging the underlying, partisan swipe of the story. Why should this type of deceitful reporting be immune from criticism? Are you saying "the paper of record", this most scrupulous and ethical of journalistic institutions maybe in the world, places its journalistic neck out for the almighty dollar? At the expense of the truth?

Given the inconsistencies admitted by the NYT reporters as to whether SWIFT was secret or not, I feel the criticism put upon the NYT is warranted. I also question the timing of this story, given the upcoming mid-term elections.

So again, why did the NYT contend they were publishing a story about a SECRET government program? Why did they word the article: "Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror" and go on to describe SWIFT as a secret government program? I thought the NYT argument is that SWIFT wasn't a secret. On has to ask why the NYT went to so much trouble to characterize this story as exposing a SECRET, but now that the shit has hit the fan, they regress into trying to spin it as SWIFT being public domain for 5 years.

It's just a game....."Pin the Tail on the President"

host

powerclown, is it your position that if a news media outlet intiates a report with an inaccurate or false claim that a government operation is secret, when it actually isn't, it is proper and justifiable conduct on the part of the POTUS and the VEEP, to validate the inaccurate or deceitful reporting by attacking the offending media outlet repeatedly in public statements, with criticism that officially validates the flawed reporting as the reporting of "secret methods and sources", when these elected officials have knowledge that the erroneous reporting did not involve publication of "secret methods and sources", but instead involved reporting of details that were long available in the public domain? Wouldn't our president and vice-president, in those circumstances, either avoid commenting, or if they did, simply inform the public that the claim that a "secret government program" was being reported, was intentionally false or misleading, on the part of the reporting news media outlet?

Wouldn't that be an ethical, forthright, and a fair set of alternatives, when it comes to communicating the reaction of high elected leaders to the American people of such deception by the major media, as well as informing the public about the media outlet's lapse in the integrity of it's reporting?

Instead, doesn't the response to the NY Times' reporting of a SWIFT monitoring, by Bush and Cheney, align them with the Times' reporting deception, since they too, confirm the Times' assertion, to us, that indeed, a secret government monitoring program is being disclosed to us, when that is not what is happening, and Bush and Cheney know it, or should know it?
Confirmation of the latter scenario comes from the circumstances that led to this discussion. You and I did not find out from the Times or from the president or vice-president that the Times did not report about a heretofore
secret government monitoring program, we found out independently, after both the NY Times made the mistake of misreporting the status of the program as "secret" and the President and Vice-President deliberately and repeatedly made statements that reinforced the Times assertions that their article disclosed a secret program. The result is that I view this as another instance, in a long series of instances, where these two leaders seem to choose to mislead the rest of us, even in this case, where their decision seems to be contrary to their own best interests, which seems to me lie in the direction of informing the American public that the Times was reporting no secret on June 22, and then by speculating publicly that.... if the Times was reporting unreliably in that instance, how could the authenticity of their future reporting be relied on?

Just as in addressing the question as to whether Bush and Cheney knew about the existence of the September 21, 2001 SWIFT monitoring reporting before they made attack statements against the NY Times, or whether they were incompetent because they did not know that the SWIFT monitoring was info that existed in the public domain, and approved the continuation of the program for 58 months because they didn't know, I don't have a hunch, even after observing these two "leaders" as they've served 66 months in their offices, whether they were too incompetent to respond to the NY Times reporting in their own best interest, as I described above, or whether they attacked the Times as a smokescreen to distract attention from some other activity that they are still concealing. Since they both have devoted their terms in office to a priority of keeping me and every other member of the public as uninformed about their plans and priorities as they possibly could, I am inclined to believe that they are motivated to attack the Times as a tactic of distraction, rather than because they are too incompetent to simply expose the Times flawed reporting, damage the newspaper's reputation, and impress us all with their prompt and forthright communication about a report that they competently defused and dismissed.

But they didn't react that way, did they? So how can you regard Bush and Cheney's part in this in such a passive and incurious way, while you direct all of your disapproval and disdain at the NY Times.....like....Bush and
Cheney have done!

I'll agree that the NY Times June 22 article intro that called the SWIFT program a <b>"Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database"....</b> is misleading to the point of being a lie, if the NY Times editor knew before June 22 about the December, 2002 UN report paragraph #31, and about the U.S. SWIFT monitoring details still retrievable today, on more than 50 websites, where they apparently resided since they were reported on September 21, 2001.

We can assume that Time's "Blog of the Year 2004" founder, John Hinderaker didn't know about the September, 21, 2001 reporting, either, and....as with the NY Times, it should be his business to know that....because now he seems very foolish when his attempt to minimize the influence of that UN report on terrorist financial transaction methods, is examined next to the fact that the September, 21, 2001 reporting was out in the public realm and widely available.....for 58 months.....

I would never accept at face value, without a thorough independent fact check, anything that John Hinderaker states on his CNN appearances, or on his blog. I find it ironic, that for you current purpose, you hold the "authority" or "reliability" of NY Times reporting, up, to any stature or respect, at all.

I doubt that you, or Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney, turn to the NY Times as a prime source for your news intake...we know from Cheney's own statements and a recent report about his accomodation requirements, that Fox news is his prime source for news. You do, however, seem to want to make a convincing pitch that you somehow expected more from the NY Times. You take offense at their June 22 reporting because you say, an important, mid-term election, that incidentally does not include candidacies of either Bush or Cheney, would take place <b>20 weeks after</b> the questionable NY Times reporting about a "secret" data mining program.

IMO, Bush and Cheney's roles in the attack on the NY Times reporting, cannot be considered in a vacuum, and John Hinderaker is much closer in stature and influence (64 million hits on Power Line Blog's website counter....) to the NY Times, than either the Times or Hinderaker is to the stature and influence of Bush or Cheney. There is at least equal motivation for Bush and Cheney to attack the NY Times, in view of their reporting on warrantless and FISA-less NSA data collection, that Bush specifically asked the Times' editor, not to publish, as their is to motivate the Times to describe SWIFT as "secret" because of a chance to negatively influence republican election prospects, 20 weeks in the future.

What you avoid discussing...and I specifically asked you to do so....is whether you agree that Bush and Cheney are the elected officials who run one of the three branches of the U.S. federal government, and indisputably the most powerful one, at that, and thus, they are accountable and responsible in a much more signifigant way....to all of us, than the NY Times or John Hinderaker are. You give the impression that you absolve them completely, because the NY Times reporting has somehow, vicitmized them, and provided them the unquestioned right to attack the NY Times for "disclosing secret methods and sources", as Cheney put it, and when Larry King asked Bush about what the NY Times did, Bush declared that "disclosure is disclosure."

powerclown, you and I seem to be in agreement now, that the disclosure of the SWIFT data mining by the US government. conducted for the last 58 months, was not disclosure of a secret. We disagree that what should follow, are explanations from Bush and Cheney as to why they attacked the NY Times for "disclosure"....they should be able to tell us much, since they are unrestrained from discussing the disclosure of info that was long in the public domain. We should be given an opportunity to ask them if they knew of the existance of the September 21, 2001 reporting about SWIFT monitoring, or about the December, 2002 UN report that described SWIFT, before they launched their criticism of the NY Times. They should also answer the question, if they did know, why SWIFT monitoring continued for 58 months, when the existence and description of the monitoring of terrorists program was known in the public domain. Why did they bother to continue it when anybody who should have had an interest in knowing to avoid SWIFT scrutiny, could easily know, and what other justification was there to continue SWIFT monitoring for so long a time period, and was the info that was data mined, used for any other purposes by US agencies?

If they didn't know that SWIFT monitoring was long described in the public domain, how do they explain their lack of knowing as anything other than incompetence, and inattention to a condition that must have signifigantly degraded the expense and justification of continuing SWIFT data mining. They should also answer questions as to whether info obtained via SWIFT monitoring was obtained without warrants or with warrants too unspecific to yield evidence that was admissible in criminal courts.

I come away from this exchange with you, powerclown, appreciating that you made the time and effort to engage in a real discussion of these issues, but it concerns me that you seem to demand so much accountability, explanation, and integrity of the NY Times editors, a newspaper that you had little regard before June 22, and even less for now.....and so little of any of these three traits/responses from either Mr. Bush or from Mr. Cheney, regarding their decisions, actions, and comments, in this matter, a matter of the management of national security policy and operations, during a U.S. war on terror.

powerclown

I would say that once the NYT threw this article onto its front page, after being asked not to by the administration, the damage was done. I don't think any president in any country should be forced by its own press into exposing to the outside world each and every security program it has. The NYT made a perfectly legal, seemingly effective financial tracking program the issue...Bush was pissed about it and I don't blame him.

Regarding Hinderaker, I've read his rantings and I think they're ridiculous. And I do think this is all about the november elections. Bush was on immigration not too long ago, his poll numbers rose. It was the press' turn to play.

Rekna

I find it funny how people change their tune so easily depending on party affiliation. Many people on this forum have argued that the Plame case wasn't a leak because it was public knowledge and now they claim the reverse that this wasn't public knowledge and therefore is irresponsible reporting. To me they both were both at the same level of public knowlege, that is they wern't. Even though some astute person could have figured out both things it would have took a lot of work, digging, and probably some luck. What the press did is bring both cases into the mainstream. To me it comes down to what was leaked and is it something that I should know. In the case of the plame case I don't believe that information was in any way important for people to know. That report was nothing more than a retaliation for standing against the administration. This leak however is potentially illegal and deserves public oversight because the president himself tried to prevent any oversight possibly breaking the law himself. This is only a case of national security in so much as protecting the rights of all Americans from an overreaching administration that continues to attempt to consolodate it's power throwing away everything that our founding fathers worked so hard to achieve. If we let our rights be taken away then the terrorists have already won.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,202689,00.html

ubertuber

Side comment: jeez - get a load of these guys' egos. I disagree with this part of Hoekstra's statement:

I think the personal affront that he feels is implied is far less important than any of the other potential issues here.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

host

Forgive the length, but its' worth the read....I have a passion for wading through the bullshit that I witness every day in America. Lots of strong opinions, but IMO, it's rare to find anyone with one that is on track. More than half of congress was on the wrong side of this one....
powerclown, you have argued that President Bush is somehow, a "victim" of the NY Times, partisan bias and pre-election sabotage of republicans running for office in the november, mid-term elections. The Washington Post described the "secret government monitoring" of global banking transactions, and CIA and Treasury agents' intent to "plug in" to the "computerized systems" of SWIFT specifically, in an August 28, 1998, article, yet reported, as the NY Times did, nearly eight years later, about "the secret NSA and Treasury programs", or that the WSJ editorial stated:
Trusted "sources", WSJ and Foxnews both revealed that this is a Bush/Cheney/Rove "Op" that we watched play out, or I'm wrong, and we're actually watching an administration that has classified and held secret, so much information, and so many initiatives, that they reflexively label everything that major news media question them about, to get "their side" of the story, as "secret".

This "Op" is by no means, restricted to the NY Times. The background story on the NY Times decision to publish their "secret government monitoring" disclosure, was that the LA Times was also preparing a similar report. On June 30, executive editors from both newspapers published this unusual Op-Ed:
Here is the June 23, 2006, reporting by the Washington Post:
<h3>Not only was the bank monitoring program not "secret" as the government has maintained, and leaked to the WSJ, it was disclosed in 1998. </h3>
As we see documented above, it flies in the face of credulity that Bush and Cheney are the "victims" of partisan reporting tactics by the New York Times.
Four of the most prominent American newspapers were told that publication of the U.S. CIA and Treasury Dept. banking surveillance of SWIFT financial transactions was "secret". The LA & NY Times decided to publish the information that they had both gathered via investigative reporting. The Bush administration retaliated, as the WSJ clearly admitted, and Foxnews' Bret Baier confirmed, by feeding their version of the story to WSJ and Washington Post, to rob the Times of an "exclusive".

The problem is that the SWIFT monitoring clearly was not secret, it was information previously in the public domain, reported most clearly by the Washington Post in August, 1998, and briefly described in a September, 2001 report, written by a current NY Times reporter, Scott Shane, who worked for the Tribune owned, Baltimore Sun, at that time. The LA Times, also Tribune owned, and, along with the NY Times, an independent investigator and discloser of the "secret" SWIFT data mining program, has had Scott Shane's 2001 SWIFT reporting, up on it's website for...58 months.

If this is not enough to influence anyone who was convinced by powerclown that Bush is a "victim" of the NY Times, consider the opening quote box on this post....the one that describes both republican controlled houses of congress halting all other legislative business to hound, threaten, and condemn....the New York Times.

If you support any of these congress folk or this administration, please state your case as to what I've gotten wrong in my posts, and what powerclown has gotten right. IMO, this incident is worth focussing on. It exposes the obsessive and vigorous agenda of a secretive administration, at war with the press. The press, as I've documented....three major newspapers, all published the administration's claim that the CIA/Treasury monitoring of SWIFT computers was a "secret" program. The entire republican congress bought that "line", and went with it. Two of the newspapers, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, have been documented, in this post, previously publishing details of SWIFT, the Washington Post in the most similar detail to today's alledged "secrets". The NY Times, convicted by powerclown, as "victimizing" Mr. Bush, has merely been associated with past reporting of SWIFT....by me..
because I discovered that one of their current reporters, Scott Shane, who didn't author the June 22 reporting on the "secret program", did mention SWIFT in the 2001 article that appears to this day on the <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fbal-te.money21sep21%2C1%2C2970618.story&btnG=Google+Search">LA Times website</a>, when he worked another LA Times/Tribune newspaper.
(To make it work, the LA Times link resolves as a google search result first.)

The WSJ, by it's own admission, was fed and then published the Bush admin. "spin" on the story that the LA & NY Times filed from their own investigative reporting.

FIXNVYUCCAMOUNT

Actually, you have got it wrong here. It's called no prior restraint. Under the First Amendment, publication cannot be restrained or halted. Only after the fact, that media can be held accountable for any wrong doing/misprints.

Willravel

Host, doesn't that Washington Post article effectively shoot down the "it was classified" argument? Which means that any vigilent al Qaeda members already knew about the program? Which means that the program going on since 1998 would have been useless in trying to aprehend terrorism? Which means that the government has had a domestic treasury spying program that has had nothing to do with terrorism or stopping terrorists for almost the past 8 years?

Interesting.